Over the past two years, Shi Village had seen a surge in its overall strength. Shi Linhu and Shi Feijiao were both on the verge of reaching the Blood-Moving Realm (Mid-Stage), and the majority of the Hunting Team members were rapidly approaching the Blood-Moving Realm (Early-Stage). Furthermore, ever since they managed to capture scaly horses as mounts, their hunting range had expanded dramatically. Every time they ventured out, they returned to the village with their game bags overflowing with prey.
That was not even mentioning Little Tot, who possessed top-tier comprehension and a protagonist aura in this world. Shi Heng strongly suspected that Little Tot's arm strength had already reached twenty thousand catties.
It seemed he needed to find an opportunity to have Little Tot practice the Devouring Cultivation Method as well!
Compared to the original timeline, Shi Village could now roam freely across the boundless wilderness within a radius of several thousand li, aside from provoking a few Archaic Descendants like the Suanni and the Ox Demon in the mountains, as well as the Sacrificial Spirits of certain other villages.
The Old Chief knew very well that their current strength was still nothing to boast about; they could only throw their weight around in a remote, barren backwater like the wild mountains. Therefore, he strictly forbade the village's young men from starting unnecessary conflicts with other tribes.
To make matters worse, due to the emergence of the Supreme Divine Treasure, the depths of the mountains had been restless for the past two years, with skies ablaze day in and day out and the earth trembling constantly. This led the tribal elders to instruct the hunters every day to proceed with caution when venturing into the mountains.
Shi Heng, having finished his cultivation practice, was pulling weeds in the vegetable patch behind the village.
Life in Shi Village was monotonous. Once the survival crisis was resolved, he had cleared a plot of land for melons and vegetables, which also made it convenient to teach the villagers how to farm.
He had tended to the vegetable garden himself for two years. He told the villagers that he had found the seeds in the mountains, and then he planted a vast array of gourds, melons, and vegetables. There was a river just a mile away, making irrigation extremely convenient.
"Uncle Shi Heng, look, wow!" Little Tot shouted, holding up a giant winter melon weighing several hundred catties and showing it off to Shi Heng.
Thanks to the medicinal baths and adequate nutrition, Little Tot had grown taller than in the original timeline. He was fair-skinned and tender, with rosy cheeks, looking just like a porcelain doll at three and a half years old. With his long eyelashes fluttering and his big eyes wide open, he was utterly adorable.
Although he was over four years old in age, he still looked very small. It seemed he would not be able to fully overcome the foundational damage caused by having his Supreme Bone dug out until he obtained the Suanni's precious blood.
The vegetables in the garden generally grew larger than those on Earth; even a winter melon weighing several hundred catties was just slightly larger than usual.
He smiled and nodded at Little Tot, saying, "Oh! It's huge! Little Tot is amazing for finding such a big winter melon! Tonight, Uncle will make you a stewed winter melon with yellow badger, followed by a bowl of hundred-beast yogurt. I guarantee your belly will be round as a ball!"
"Yay! Uncle Shi Heng's yogurt is the best!" Little Tot hopped up and down with joy.
"Chirp! Chirp!" The three eagles of Ziyun, following behind, imitated Little Tot and hopped up and down as well, looking quite comical.
"What are you three joining in for? You're eagles, not little chicks! You couldn't possibly eat all that winter melon even if I gave it to you." Shi Heng shook his head as he looked at the three eagles behind Little Tot.
"Chirp! Chirp!" The three eagles of Ziyun tilted their heads upward, looking precisely like spoiled children acting cute.
"Fine! Fine! If you don't eat it then, I'll force-feed you with a funnel!" he threatened playfully, feeling immensely amused.
"Uncle Shi Heng, I learned Ziyun and the others' Divine Technique today! Look at my hand, it's super awesome~!"
A brilliant crescent moon emerged on Little Tot's left hand, rising and falling as it spun. As he spoke, the crescent moon flew out and sliced a hundred-and-some-catty watermelon in the vegetable patch right down the middle, sending melon juice splashing everywhere.
"Ah~!" Little Tot had only wanted to show off, but ended up butchering the watermelon in the patch. Startled, he dropped the winter melon and hurriedly scrambled back toward the village on his short little legs.
"Chirp! Chirp!" The three eagles of Ziyun followed closely behind him and ran off too.
"Lit... tle... Tot...! Don't you run! Look at the mess you made!" Shi Heng yelled, wiping the watermelon juice off his face with an angry expression.
More than half a month had passed since his last training session at Luo Feng's home, and Shi Heng had broken through to the ultimate limit of 540,000 catties of arm strength.
He still had no clear path for breaking through to the Grotto-Heaven realm and needed to study more runes first, so he had been living a very leisurely and carefree life.
The key given by the Inspector served to parse the shallow rules of the world, which was equivalent to an unlocked dictionary of rune rules for the Nine Heavens and Ten Earths version.
It was akin to teaching only grammar without touching math or physics.
Shi Heng had begun studying it and frequently went to listen to lectures from the Old Chief, but compared to his physical body at the 540,000-catty extreme realm, the progress was agonizingly slow... It seemed he had to acquire a Divine Technique!
He simply put his studies aside for a temporary break—this also happened to be the most leisurely period he had experienced since transmigrating.
He was in no rush; in a few months, when the Willow Deity moved the village, everything would officially set sail.
Just as Shi Heng stepped out of his house after changing his clothes, a commotion reached his ears from the entrance of the village, faint sounds of a child crying mingling with the noise.
Shi Heng hurried out of his courtyard and rushed to the village entrance, only to see Pihou crying as he flung himself over Shi Shoushan, who was lying on the ground.
He thought to himself, *What's going on? Shi Shoushan is already at the Blood-Moving Realm (Early-Stage), so why is he lying here like this?*
"What are you crying for? I'm not missing any arms or legs," Shi Shoushan scolded Pihou and Pihou's mother, who had hurried over behind him.
"Who beat you up?" Shi Linhu asked, standing off to the side.
"Who else could it be? Those bastards from Bei Village. This time, a new young punk showed up, vicious as hell and trying to steal my prey. He shot a poisoned arrow from the shadows while I was hunting a six-footed camel, and before I noticed, he'd pierced right through my lung," Shi Shoushan said between heavy pants, wearing a defiant look.
Unlike in the original timeline, Shi Shoushan and the others generally possessed higher arm strength now, so they always went into the mountains in groups of ten to hunt. This time, Shi Shoushan's team happened to be on the side of Bei Village. The two sides got into a massive brawl over contested prey, and after the Shi Village split-team knocked down over twenty young men from Bei Village, a standoff ensued.
Immediately afterward, the old Suanni was searching for its final resting place, passing right through the area where they were hunting. Hearing the roars of the old Suanni, both sides hastily retreated back to their respective villages.
"This matter cannot just end like this!" an elder said with a wrathful expression.
"Right!" The young men had long since grown impatient with the notorious Bei Village next door. Fights over prey during mountain hunts happened from time to time, but this time, the venomous actions of Bei Feng had ignited the fuse.
"Bei Liqing probably still has no idea about our village's current strength. After all, our power has only skyrocketed in the past two years. Perhaps they've also obtained some fortuitous encounter to grow stronger; to dare be this arrogant, we have to go teach them a lesson," Shi Linhu mused aloud from the side.
"There's no need to rush. Let's see what they're up to first! Everyone should be extra careful when going hunting from now on; we've got a long road ahead of us!" The Old Chief stopped Shi Linhu, who was just about to rally the young men.
Shi Heng knew how important the Bei Village incident was for Little Tot's growth. As long as things did not exceed a controllable scope, he was content to let nature take its course. After all, fledgling birds had to fly high; how could Little Tot grow into the future Emperor Huang who ruled the ages without experiencing tempering?
Besides, Bei Village could only be described as a bunch of little puppies. To an external cheat like him—a Blood-Moving realm cultivator with 540,000 catties of arm strength—nobody in the wild mountains could be a match for him, save for the Suanni, the demonic ape, and a few other suspected Inscription-realm Archaic Descendants, or the Four Divine Beasts searching for the Supreme Divine Treasure.
Over half a month later, during a routine hunt.
Sure enough, Shi Fu was injured, and then, with Little Tot arriving moments later and going all out—unleashing over ten thousand catties of arm strength combined with rune Divine Techniques, sending Bei Village's men flying with every punch and breaking their bones left and right—the villagers of Bei Village were left sprawled on the ground with fractured limbs.
"Little Tot, you're too kind-hearted. You hold back way too much; that's very dangerous for yourself! If we were weaker than them, they wouldn't spare us!" Shi Linhu lectured Little Tot all the way back home after beating up the Bei Village youths.
"Yeah!" Little Tot twisted and fidgeted with his fingers, letting Shi Linhu lecture him the entire way without offering a word in response.
If he hadn't seen the uncles of the village who treated him so well get injured this time, he wouldn't have made a move at all. Given his intelligence, he actually understood right and wrong quite well in his heart; he was simply too young and unaccustomed to the cruelty of the world.
"Brother Linhu, stop badgering Little Tot. Little Tot knows what he's doing," Shi Heng said, stepping in as he pretended to have just rushed over from Shi Village to join Shi Linhu and Little Tot.
"This time, Little Tot gave us a huge surprise! Who would've thought he's already reached the Blood-Moving Realm (Mid-Stage)! Plus Brother Heng, who's also at the mid-stage—ha! Why should our Shi Village worry about not prospering!" Shi Feijiao laughed heartily from the side.
"I'd say Little Tot is no less impressive than the prodigies from tribes with populations in the hundreds of millions!" Shi Linhu affirmed.
"Who knows, maybe Little Tot will be the king of the Shi Nation in the future!" Shi Heng curved the corners of his mouth and joined Shi Linhu and the others in bragging.
Inwardly, however, he thought: *I need to find a way to boost Shi Hao's strength even further. Hmm! I wonder if I can get him to participate in the Universe Genius Tournament. I just hope five years will be enough time for him to reach the Spirit Transformation realm!*